If you were wondering what approach the new leaders in the newly GOP-controlled Legislature would take to transit, light rail and specifically the planned Southwest LRT (which would run along a route pictured at left), wonder no more: They aren't big fans.

Will $ derail Southwest LRT?

The proposed Southwest light rail transit line would run on railroad tracks adjacent to this bike path in the Kenilworth neighborhood of Minneapolis. The bike path would have to be modified a bit but would still exist. (File photo: Bill Klotz)

GOP leaders aren’t big fans, but business support is strong

If state Rep. Michael Beard has his way, the Legislature will stop the $1.25 billion Southwest light rail transit line “in its tracks” for a few years to consider its financial implications for cash-strapped Minnesota.

That’s what Beard, R-Shakopee, the new head of the transportation committee in the Minnesota House, said Thursday in a telephone interview from a vacation spot in Florida.

“It’s very early on with [planning for the] Southwest, and I’d like to see us stop that in its tracks – pun intended – for a few years to let the economy catch up and let the emotions die down,” he said. “Everybody wants a new train for Christmas. But is this a luxury we can afford? Just because Dallas and Denver have one, do we need to have one too?”

And Sen. Amy Koch, R-Buffalo, the new majority leader, said Thursday that she and the new chairman of the Senate transportation committee, Sen. Joe Gimse, R-Willmar, will be looking closely at all transit projects, especially Southwest. She expects the state’s shaky bottom line will have legislators leaning toward road projects to get the economy going again.

“The people of Minnesota have asked us to come in here and check everything out and see what’s best for the state,” Koch said. “So we’re going to move forward with caution and use the money the best we can. It’s all about priorities.”

Koch added that she was “worried about the big price tag” that the Southwest LRT project carries. “I know it’s important to a lot of people, but we have to see how it fits into the limited budget we have. That’s our job now.”

So, if you were wondering what approach the new GOP leaders in the newly GOP-controlled Legislature would take to transit, LRT and in particular the still-early-in-the-planning-stages Southwest LRT, wonder no more: They aren’t big fans.

And if the GOP leadership wants to stop the Southwest LRT project, they can – if they can muster the votes to deny the Metropolitan Council bonding authority for the project.

Bottom line: The Met Council, which serves at the whim of the governor and state Legislature, oversees LRT construction projects – and the Legislature can vote to take that power away.

The Southwest LRT would run almost 15 miles, starting in Minneapolis and passing through St. Louis Park, Hopkins, Minnetonka and coming very close to Edina before ending in Eden Prairie.

Supporters strongly disagree with Beard and Koch on the value of the project. They include Hennepin County Commissioner Peter McLaughlin, who is head of the county’s Regional Railroad Authority, as well as the Counties Transit Improvement Board.

The transit improvement board controls nearly $100 million a year that it collects in a quarter-cent sales tax, which its five county members approved in 2008, and a $20 motor vehicle sales tax the Legislature approved the same year. (The counties are Anoka, Dakota, Hennepin, Ramsey and Washington.)

And in September the Met Council submitted a “New Starts” application to the Federal Transit Administration. If the FTA approves the application, which usually takes six months, the project can enter preliminary engineering – a vital step that’s partially dependent on unified local support for the project in question.

New Starts is the federal government’s “primary financial resource for supporting locally planned, implemented and operated transit ‘guideway’ capital investments,” according to the FTA’s website.

McLaughlin said the Southwest LRT would serve “not only DFL areas, but it gets into very Republican areas as well – and that’s significant. I think [LRT projects] are always hard, but in fact Southwest is still a fundamentally strong project with broad, bipartisan support.”

More than three years ago, four chambers of commerce along the Southwest route formed the Southwest Transitway Alliance to advocate for the project. The four are the the TwinWest Chamber of Commerce, the Eden Prairie chamber, the Minneapolis Regional chamber and the Edina chamber.

“We are very sensitive to the political realities, but we think the Southwest LRT stands on its own merits, and whether Republicans or Democrats are in power we will continue to talk about how this project is good for our communities,” said Bruce Nustad, president of the TwinWest Chamber of Commerce.

Robert McFarlin, former acting head of the Minnesota Department of Transportation, is a member of the Metropolitan Council – appointed by Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty – and is head of its transportation committee. He’s a supporter.

“Southwest to me is a very good, a very promising LRT line,” McFarlin said. “But it’s possible that the country is going to look at LRT investment differently under this Congress. It’s certainly possible that the state Legislature will look at LRT differently. But I wouldn’t panic.”

Meanwhile, the Central Corridor LRT project, which will link downtown St. Paul to downtown Minneapolis, is much further down the pike than Southwest. Construction has started, and the FTA has given the project the green light to enter final design – and ranks it No. 1 on its list of New Starts transit projects.

Rep. Mike Beard

Beard and Koch said the $957 million, 11-mile Central Corridor project is probably too far down the line to stop, though Koch said she’d still like Gimse’s transportation committee to take a close look at Central Corridor.

Beard put it this way: “Central Corridor is a monster snowball running down the mountainside, and I don’t know if we’d be doing the taxpayers a favor by getting in the way of that monster snowball. But it will be instructive as to just what we are buying.”

He described the existing Hiawatha LRT line and the Central Corridor as “urban redevelopment projects” – not congestion relievers, as supporters have long argued.

“When you look at the capital drawn to the station areas [around Hiawatha and Central Corridor], it’s significant and will eventually generate a tax base for the counties involved. But the argument that these provide congestion relief – I don’t buy that for a second. It’s more urban redevelopment.”

And Beard says he doesn’t see the Southwest LRT project as urban redevelopment – not yet, anyway.

“I can see property owners being excited about [the Southwest LRT],” Beard said. “Higher density could happen down the line and that LRT line might make more sense then, but that’s down the line.”

He added, “Our job is to provide folks the most mobility for the buck, and if we put those criteria up against Southwest, I think it fails.”

The money breaks down this way now for LRT projects: FTA would pay for 50 percent, the Counties Transit Improvement Board would cover 30 percent and the Hennepin County Regional Railroad Authority and the state of Minnesota would each pay 10 percent.

The formula used to be that the feds paid for 50 percent of LRT construction projects; states, 33 percent (as with Hiawatha and the initial stages of Central Corridor); and local entities, 17 percent.

But that math changed with the introduction of the Counties Transit Improvement Board and the five-county, quarter-cent sales tax.

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8 comments

Beard, and Amy Koch just lost my vote…What kind of selfish jerks did we elect? They want to turn down federal funding at 50 percent of the project cost simply to make themselves appear to be “reformers”. Just like Bachman and T Paw have done, they will spite MN in order to make themselves appear tough and independent.

Seems to me to be quite a cheap shot with indicating that the Beard was in Florida at a vacation spot. Guess the implication is that the fat cats could care less about those who must ride public transit.

I hope they stop it because our officals choose the wrong routing KEnniworth will not attract eough riders to justify the cost and low ridership .The Midtown would have very high ridership serving high density areas of Mpls . Convention center,NIc Mall,tech colleges,MIA,LYn/lake area,Nic/Lake and Uptown which have some of the buisiest buslines.
The ingore the ridership for the midtown route to push the kenniworh routing serving the Kenwood area.

Of course LRT is urban redevelopment. And of course it’s congestion relief … a little bit now, and alot in 20 years. And it’s alot of other things too, including a small contribution to trying to keep civilization from disappearing under the melted glaciers. The best line: \Our job is to provide folks the most mobility for the buck.\ Rep Beard, the earth is spinning at about 550 miles an hour, we’re all getting plenty of mobility for free. Government is not about \mobility,\ its about creating and maintaining a decent society in which people can live decent lives of their choosing. Land use, transportation – not unrelated. Sheesh.

Ps jlb — You refer to those “who must ride public transit.” In fact I prefer to ride public transit. I think, conversely, of those “who must drive cars.” Not to attack you personally, but your comment reveals a mindset. I’ve lived in many places where transit is the way to go, and only the sad sacks sit in their cars. I would guess that if one looked at metropolitan areas, the correlation between level of transit ridership and livability/vitality would be pretty direct.